From Rock Stars to Dictators: Who We Said Goodbye To in 2011 The Year in Death

Maybe you wouldn’t imagine a collaboration between Playboy and Disney would ever exist, but you’d be on the wrong side of history. This pairing actually took place in 2010, on the occasion of Tron: Legacy’s release. In a pictorial, the two legendary universes blended together for a dance between the futuristic light suits of Tron and the sexy babes of Playboy. What’s interesting, though, is that this idea had actually been on the table nearly 30 years before, upon the release of the original Tron in 1982.

The original Tron, released 43 years ago this week, took place in a digital universe never before seen on the silver screen. It was so foreign, however, that Disney’s marketing and public relations teams actually didn’t know how to market it yet. According to Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation by animator and animation historian Tom Sito, Playboy came along and presented the potential partnership first. The pitch included a “photo spread called ‘The Girls of Tron,’ featuring nude Playboy models with their naughty parts discreetly covered by circuit boards,” Sito wrote. But Disney was by no means at a place where they would accept such an offer from the magazine, whose reputation at the time even barred it from being sold at 7-Eleven convenience stores (Did Playboy do a “Women of 7-Eleven” spread in response? Yes. Yes, they did.) A few years earlier, the magazine had also encountered obscenity charges. The offer was rejected.